Duke Nukem II was developed and published by Apogee Software in 1993. In this sequel to the original Duke Nukem, our hero Duke must foil the Rigelatins' plans to steal his brain and use it to take over the planet.

Mechanics

Just a couple things to go over:

Settings

The game has a built-in game speed feature which is increased to the maximum level. Hard difficulty is also chosen, which increases the number of enemies and increases enemy health.

Physics

This game's physics are similar to the previous game. There is no horizontal acceleration and only a small amount of vertical acceleration. One nice upgrade is that the jump height is no longer fixed.

Lag

Duke Nukem II is one of the rare DOS games with avoidable lag frames. Things like killing certain enemies, blowing up barriers, and anything with particle effects can have a significant effect on lag.

Flamethrower skips

The flamethrower is a huge factor in these runs because of its ability to make you fly by shooting down in the air. It's good for small time saves like going up over ledges, but it can also help you skip keys and access cards, significantly shortening a level. You get 64 charges with each pickup, so you have to be careful not to squander them.

Bonuses

Most of the secret bonuses are easily avoidable, but some you have to go out of your way to avoid. Having one bonus adds a little extra time to the bonus screen, and having multiple bonuses causes massive time losses.

Level comments

Level 1

Right off the bat we get our first aircraft. The aircraft is fast and has extremely powerful rapid fire lasers. There's no real risk of dying here, and lag isn't even a problem, so most of the level is a playaround.

Level 2

This one is fairly long with not many routing options. The first set of rockets should be blown up early, as it opens a path to the exit and makes the backtracking for the blue key a little faster. The little robots are extremely annoying because they travel at the same speed as Duke and will stay inside of you until you die. One of them has to be juked to avoid massive damage.

I discovered a glitch in level 4 and I had to go back and apply it to the previous 2 levels. If you jump at the same time that you insert an access card or key, you skip the pause that normally happens and immediately start moving again. Obviously this would save time in the Episode 1 run as well, so that will be implemented if that run is ever revisited.

Level 3

There's quite a lot to explore in this level, although most of it is optional. Very little damage management, and the only complex part of the routing is the path to the teleporter.

Level 4

This is one level where it would have been nice to have a flamethrower, but we'll be fine without it. This level is very technical with lots of precise platforming.

Level 5

Health management is a huge problem here, as there are a bunch of high HP enemies and slime pits. A lot of time has to be spent avoiding damage or else you just won't make it. You need to get to the slime pit near the key with at least one HP so you can cross it without waiting. After that point, it's relatively safe.

Level 6

Another mostly vertical level with a lot of platforming. Despite the difficulty, health management isn't nearly as much of a problem as it was in the last level. There's a free rocket launcher powerup on-path, which is used sparingly in this level so it can be saved for the next level.

Level 7

Routing gets very difficult at this point. This level is absolutely _loaded_ with enemies, and we have 9 radar dishes to destroy before we can leave. The rocket launcher is helpful, but we run out of ammo very quickly due to the sheer number of enemies. After picking up the flamethrower, we have to use it as little as possible. The reason for this is because the flamethrower pickup will be the only option for the boss in the next level. Every unit of ammo that's used in this level is at least a 2 frame loss in the boss fight, but staying alive is pretty important, so some of it has to be used.

As for destroying the radar dishes, there are a couple different routes you can take. The first loop of 3 radars is a little faster to do counter-clockwise. Surprisingly, it's about 6 seconds faster to climb up and destroy the topmost radar dish rather than save that one for last. You can also save the bottom left radar for last, but you use a little more flamethrower ammo so it's not quite worth it.

Unfortunately, there's a secret bonus, but it's worth dealing with. The bonus is for collecting all the weapons in the level, and the flamethrower is the only one available. Obviously it's worth picking it up and taking some time loss rather than trying to kill the boss with a pea shooter.

Level 8

The strategy for this boss is much simpler than it was in Episode 1. We take advantage of the flamethrower's flying capabilities and lateral movement by hovering to the ceiling above the boss and following him for as long as possible, which allows you to get a few more shots in than staying on the ground and shooting upward. The last 30 HP have to be taken down with the default weapon, but it's not that bad because at this point he's in a phase where you can keep up with him.

Thanks

Shoutouts to CapnClever and Bonesaw577, the two RTA runners of this game. Their runs were a great reference.

Nach: Yet another messed up run where you cannot stop Duke Nukem. Audience feedback was minimal but positive. Accepting as first run for this game.